Talk:A Supplement to the Journey to the West

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Comments[edit]

To Ghostexorcist: Hi, I would like to continue the discussion about the date of the publication and the name of the author here, if you do not mind. I copy our previous comments below (1940 and 1941 are, of course, my typos, sorry) and add another.

00:12, 9 April 2012‎ WikiHannibal The first edition is the woodblock edition believed to be made in 1941; I have not found anything confirming 1940 as the year of the publication. However, the text may be older (i.e. e.g. 1940).)

13:59, 9 April 2012‎ Ghostexorcist The Chinese dictionaries that I consulted while writing this use Tong, as do other unrelated sources dealing with that character. A 1650 poem mentions that the author "supplemented the Xiyouji ten years ago," which is 1640

1) name - now I noticed that in the article you have the chinese characters for the name of the author wrong, which probably lead you to the transcription "Tong". Chinese 童 that you use in the article is indeed transcribed as "tóng" (general meaning "boy"). However, the name of the author is 董, transcribed as Dong. Please check the characters for yourself. See Chinese verison of the article "Supplement to the Journey to the West" or Chiense version of the article on Dong Yue (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%91%A3%E8%AA%AA). Also amazon selling your book uses also pinyin verison of the name (apart from the w-g transription) here: http://www.amazon.com/Yue-Dong/e/B001KMI21Q/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1333990580&sr=1-2.

2) date - I do not dispute the fact that the book might be "created/written" in 1640, and that might be the year the poem refers to (if only vaguely). However, we are concerned with the date of "publication" - with illustrations, preface, etc., which is xinsi - that is autumn 1641 according to some scholars but not 1640 - there is no edition of this book from 1640. All of this you described in the section "Proper dating", only the conclusions are misleading. There is also a reprinted version (1955, Beijing http://www.worldcat.org/title/xi-you-bu/oclc/020954552) of the woodblock edition, which dates it to 1641 - a study Xi you bu zuo zhe Dong Ruoyu zhuan by Prof. Liu Fu (who already dated it to 1641 much earlier).

If you are not convinced by the points I made, please give your explanation, and I will try to find other sources to back up. If you have sources confirming your point of view, plase refer to them as I did. Plus excuse my style ;-), as I am not a native speaker of English. Please made appropriat echanges to the article or let me know that I can make them. Also be sure that my intention is only to have a "good" article; not to promote my opinion or anything else. WikiHannibal (talk) 17:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't realize that you had left a message on the talk page. I see that I got the character wrong. As for the "publication date," I see where I was in error. I have no problems with the changes. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:58, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have a nice day! WikiHannibal (talk) 19:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The English title[edit]

Is Supplement to the Journey to the West the actual title? Because it seems like a bad translation to me, or maybe too literal of one. Either way, it doesn't sound right in English. Especially for literary works. Its the equivalent of calling The Hobbit by the title "Prequel to the Lord of the Rings". It seems like the Tower of Myriad Mirrors is the published English title of this book by the University of Michigan Press [1]. Perhaps we should move it to that title, or maybe just Xi You Bu.--Sevilledade (talk) 06:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tower of Myriad Mirrors is not the actual title. The original Chinese characters translate as "Westward Journey Supplement." This may seem odd, but the characters for Journey to the West translate as "Westward Journey Record." Even the English translation mentions that the name is "literally 'Supplement to the Journey to the West'" in the introduction. We could change the title to the romanization Xiyoubu, but then we would have to change the Journey to the West article to Xiyouji. It is important to note that the tower is actually only a very small portion of the story. I vote to keep the title the way it is in order to avoid confusion. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 13:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sevilledade - It is a good translation, and your example is misleading (If Tolkien published his story just as "Prequel to the Lord of the Rings" and later another publisher renamed it "Hobbit", would you name the article according to the latter title?) To Ghostexorcist's reasoning I add that French, Hunagrian and Czech editions use also the term "supplement" in the title. Moreover, I suppose this is not an article just about the English edition of Xiyoubu but an article, in English, about Xiyoubu. -> I agree with keeping the title as it is but I would also accept renaming it to Xiyoubu WITHOUT changing the Journey to the West article to Xiyouji. Glad that this book is so popular ;-) WikiHannibal (talk) 12:38, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]